


open my heart and let it bleed onto yours

by sosobriquet



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Agnes Nutter's Prophecies, Anal Fingering, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Come as Lube, Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Praise Kink (Good Omens), Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Dom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fantasizing, Feelings, First Kiss, Food Kink, Getting Caught Jerking It, Love Letters, M/M, Masturbation, Miracled Sleepwear, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Other, Pining, Pining Aziraphale (Good Omens), Pining Crowley (Good Omens), Plants as Metaphors, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Post-Bus Ride (Good Omens), Praise Kink, Revelations, Scene: The Bus Ride (Good Omens), Sexual Fantasy, Sock Garters, Spit As Lube, The Eagle Lectern, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, The Night After the Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), The Night At Crowley's Flat (Good Omens), They Hold Hands on the Bus, Yearning from Ten Feet Away, acts of service
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:02:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22602916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sosobriquet/pseuds/sosobriquet
Summary: Crowley is holding the door for Aziraphale, his expression soft and open - waiting, always waiting, for him."I'll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go."Aziraphale steps inside Crowley’s flat.The angel is a beacon of light, standing in Crowley’s entryway - shining against the dark stone walls and doors of clouded glass framed by even darker wood.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 104
Collections: Good Omens Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is holding the door for Aziraphale, his expression soft and open - waiting, always waiting, for him.
> 
> "I'll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go."
> 
> Aziraphale steps inside Crowley’s flat.
> 
> The angel is a beacon of light, standing in Crowley’s entryway - shining against the dark stone walls and doors of clouded glass framed by even darker wood.

by [D20Owlbear (BeforeCrimson)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeforeCrimson/pseuds/D20Owlbear)

by [lovelybydecay](https://lovelybydecay.tumblr.com/)

by [closetcellist](https://closetcellist.tumblr.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> banner by [D20Owlbear (BeforeCrimson)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeforeCrimson/pseuds/D20Owlbear)
> 
> art by [closetcellist](https://closetcellist.tumblr.com/) and [lovelybydecay](https://lovelybydecay.tumblr.com/)
> 
> beta by [cassieoh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh) and [Eris (dwarrowkings)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwarrowkings/pseuds/Eris)
> 
> brit-pick by [Lurlur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurlur/pseuds/Lurlur)
> 
> and a little help getting back to work from [samvelg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samvelg/pseuds/samvelg)
> 
> And a big THANK YOU to everyone else who has helped me out as well! I had so many wonderful people supporting me while I worked on this!


	2. Chapter 2

As the bus to Oxford-by-way-of-London begins to move, Crowley lifts his hand and offers it, palm up, to Aziraphale. Without hesitation, Aziraphale takes it, holding on as he settles into the seat beside Crowley. 

He does not let go.

They press close together - shoulder to shoulder, arm over arm, hip against hip, and thigh touching thigh.

When the bus encounters a rough patch along the road leaving Tadfield, they jostle against each other, and Aziraphale laces his fingers through Crowley’s - choosing to cling to him rather than reach for the support of a handrail. Aziraphale can’t be sure whether the tightening of Crowley’s hand around his is mere impulse, or acknowledgement, or reassurance. He smiles anyway.

Crowley seems to be making a conscious effort to stay in his own seat, aside from his leg creeping into the area occupied by Aziraphale’s. Taking up more than his share of space, as usual, Aziraphale thinks fondly.

It’s a little strange to feel the warmth of Crowley’s shoulder brushing against his own - to feel the tension in the thigh pressed against his, to have Crowley's fingers held between his - instead of feeling the heat of his breath on the back of his neck as he speaks. Not that Crowley is speaking. But, then, Aziraphale isn’t either.

_“You could stay at my place, if you like."_

The invitation rattles around Aziraphale’s head, like a heavy piece of jewelry come loose from its careful packing, as the bus passes out of the wood around Tadfield and into the suburbs of London. It clatters, so loud he almost expects the other passengers to have heard, as the bus rolls to a stop. Crowley sits up, squeezing Aziraphale’s hand in his once more. Aziraphale feels positively giddy at the sensation, and wonders if Crowley can see it in the flush of his face.

“Our stop,” Crowley says, a gentle smile trembling at the corners of his mouth.

As they exit the bus, the driver studies a well-worn map, clearly baffled to find himself in London now that Crowley’s influence has left him. Aziraphale hesitates on the steps, but the sound of a familiar snap tells him that Crowley’s already taken care of it, and the bus driver will arrive at all the rest of his stops right on time despite the surprise detour to London.

The building Crowley leads him towards is imposing; all stark lines and dark, forbidding stone. But, that’s not why Aziraphale finds himself trying desperately to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat.

The massive entrance looms before him, smoked glass doors trimmed with cold, unforgiving metal. No light spills from the lobby into the street until Crowley reaches past Aziraphale for the antiqued brass handle. He cracks the door with a slight pull, and a thin band of weak light spills onto the sidewalk.

“After you,” Crowley says in the same subdued tone he’s been using since he’d reminded Aziraphale that his shop had burned down. He swings the door wide, inviting Aziraphale inside with a gallant flourish of his hand.

They step inside, Crowley right on Aziraphale’s dragging heels, crowded close by the weight of the heavy door swinging slowly shut behind them. Crowley brushes past him, and Aziraphale shivers at the newly familiar warmth and nearness of him.

As he passes, he catches Aziraphale’s hand in his. “C’mon, angel, I’m in the penthouse,” he says with a rogueish grin. And so Aziraphale allows himself to be lead by his gently pinioned hand; past the grand, austere staircase to an unassuming set of elevator doors.

If the outer appearance is not much to speak of, the inside is a different story entirely, Aziraphale discovers as the doors slide open at their approach. Crowley leads him inside the large space, made to feel small and cozy with dark but warm wood panelling. Alternating panels of bright metal, polished to a mirror shine, provide more than enough reflected light to enhance the rich wood grain with a warm glow and keep the darkness at bay.

Aziraphale studies Crowley’s reflection out of the corner of his eye, looking for any sign of the strain his demonic companion must be feeling, for any worry lines not already familiar to him. 

He’d rather be able to look at his face plainly, but he knows all too well just how good Crowley is at hiding everything important behind those damnable glasses of his.

He does look tired, in a way Aziraphale can’t quite place - he imagines dark circles beneath bright golden eyes, hidden behind dark-tinted glass - but the shape of his mouth is soft and ever so slightly curved. A smile Aziraphale has always felt his demon only let slip when he was at his most fond and content.

His heart _aches_.

“My dear, I’m afraid I-” he begins, and squeezes Crowley’s hand gently, looking away so he can no longer see his softly smiling reflection. He wants to hold that image in his mind. He nearly loses his nerve to finish the thought, but a quiet noise from Crowley jolts him back into action.

“I’m afraid I really _must_ apologize for the terrible way I’ve treated you,” Aziraphale continues, squeezing Crowley’s hand again, but not allowing the protest he can already hear coming. “I haven’t been fair to you at all, lately,” he trips up a little, here, when Crowley begins to grip his hand like a drowning man might a lifeline.

Aziraphale wants so much to steal a glance, to see what’s written on Crowley’s face, but the memory of finding Crowley so openly grieving in the bar gnaws at every frayed edge of him. “After all you’ve done for me, my dear, I’ve been so ungrateful, and so unkind,” he swallows hard, against the tears pricking at his eyes, and tries not to smile at incomprehensible noise of protest Crowley makes.

“It’s no excuse, but I want you to know I never _wanted_ to be cruel to you. I just -” he heaves a sigh, and Crowley leans closer to him. A pillar of support just barely touching his shoulder. “I just wanted to keep _us_ safe.”

“I know, angel,” Crowley says quietly, the words nearly lost to the chime of the elevator announcing their arrival on the topmost floor.

He leads Aziraphale from the elevator to a door with a truly ostentatious doorbell, made in the shape of a serpent. Crowley’s hold on his hand loosens, and Aziraphale takes it gently back, twisting his hands together in a nervous habit nearly as old as the Earth itself.

“You’re forgiven,” Crowley says, so gently and so softly Aziraphale isn’t sure he heard right. He looks up sharply, and nearly sinks under the weight of what he sees there.

Crowley is holding the door for Aziraphale, his expression soft and open - waiting, always waiting, _for him_.

_"I'll give you a lift. Anywhere you want to go."_

Aziraphale steps inside Crowley’s flat.

The angel is a beacon of light, standing in Crowley’s entryway - shining against the dark stone walls and doors of clouded glass framed by even darker wood. 

He is a decadent Rococo, lush and intricate, a study in curving, fragile detail, haloed by light and hung against the desolation of Crowley’s bare walls. He is Madame de Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, Yekaterina Velikaya - pale, beautiful, and sacrosanct - looking into the darkness.

Even with the sunglasses protecting his eyes, he can only stare so long. There’s only so much torment even a demon might endure, no matter how content he might be to gaze upon his angel until there is nothing at all left of him save his love..

So, Crowley looks away, turning his back to Aziraphale, and opens the door to the sitting room. It’s as austere as the rest of his flat, save the lush conservatory, and hardly looks lived in but for the old and well-cared-for Victrola in the corner, surrounded by shelves of neatly kept records. 

Two matching couches dominate the space, chosen for their modern look, and then made large enough for Crowley to sprawl out on. Each has its own end table placed nearest the door, and a matching coffee table sits between them - all sharp edges and corners threatening to do damage to the unwary.

At the far end of the room, a hint of greenery peeks through the doorway bathed in the soft glow of London at night through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Aziraphale moves towards the doorway into the garden as if drawn - either by the plants themselves or the skyline behind them. He looks back over his shoulder at Crowley, a hand reaching blindly for a hold on the doorframe behind him while he waits for Crowley’s reaction. 

Crowley shrugs a shoulder and tilts his head in response, but that’s permission enough for Aziraphale to turn and step through the doorway.

“Oh Crowley, they’re wonderful!” he gasps, hands flying up to his mouth in surprised delight. He’s so unguarded, so guileless, in his sincerity, Crowley feels his cheekbones growing hot. 

He opens his mouth to tell Aziraphale not to give the plants any _ideas_ with his kindness and his compliments, but the words get caught somewhere in his chest. It’s almost too much, seeing Aziraphale there among the plants who have not yet failed him, and so he closes his mouth.

Aziraphale saves him, for a moment, from trying to speak past the wedge in his chest when he takes a step forward for a closer look, but catches himself and looks to Crowley for permission instead. 

Aziraphale has asked Crowley for many things, but never for so much of himself. He feels unsteady and caught off guard, uncertainty pressing him out of the space he'd been sure they occupied and into entirely new territory. So he returns to the familiar - indulging Aziraphale in whatever he asks.

He smiles, altogether too fondly, at the angel. And when he opens his mouth to speak, what comes out of his mouth is neither permission nor a denial, but an invitation. That's how this dance goes, still, isn't it?

“Can I tempt- would you like some tea?” He has wine, too, and stronger spirits, but those seem like rather unwise choices at the moment.

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale accepts, turning his devastatingly sincere smile from the plant he’d started stroking to Crowley. “That sounds lovely, my dear!”

Crowley does _not_ flee down the hall to his kitchen. "Make yourself at home, angel," he calls back over his shoulder, "just don't spoil my plants!"

Of course, that is _exactly_ what Aziraphale is doing when Crowley steps back into the hall; two steaming mugs of tea in hand, both done up just the way they like - his own made pale with milk and sugar, and Aziraphale's only subtly altered by a small splash of milk and no sugar at all. 

_“Too much of either takes away from the flavour, you know,”_ he’d told Crowley once during afternoon tea at Claridge’s, after watching him drown half a mug of tea with a staggering amount of both.

The angel is silhouetted in the open doorway ahead of him, and he uses up a miracle just to silence the sound of boot heels on tile floor that he's become so fond of. It's worth it for a few stolen moments to watch as Aziraphale speaks to each of his plants in turn, complimenting their perfect shade of green or the smoothness of their leaves. 

"Well, aren't you unusual?," Aziraphale says to one plant. "Such prickly stems," he adds wonderingly, reaching out to carefully touch his fingers to the thorns. 

The plant bursts joyfully into flower. Soft red blooms nearly drown out the leaves, their color more akin to an especially bold lipstick than, say, the glow of hellfire.

"Oh, how beautiful," Aziraphale says softly, and Crowley forgets for a moment to breathe. He touches the golden center of the flowers gently. "I always have loved this color."

Crowley makes a soft, choked off noise, and Aziraphale looks up sharply. A faint flush spreads across his face as he smiles, embarrassed to have been caught but completely unrepentant. 

By now, the tea in Crowley's hands has begun to cool, and he barely remembers to miracle them warm again before Aziraphale is reaching out to take the one being offered up to him.

For a brief second, Aziraphale's fingers close over Crowley's and he smiles a small, wry smile at the angel.

They sip at their steaming mugs in companionable silence, looking at Crowley’s plants. They aren’t rustling in fear, for once - the angel’s influence, surely - and he’s not sure that he’d rather they were. 

“It’s never bloomed before,” he says without meaning to, hiding as much of his face as he possibly can behind his mug. 

“Oh! Really?” Aziraphale’s expression seems unable to decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing. “Is that-” he starts, looks away from Crowley, sips his tea, and starts again, “is it not supposed to?”

Normally, Crowley would be very reluctant to admit to anything that could be perceived as a failing of his horticultural skills. But, as is sometimes the case with the angel, honesty is what trips off his tongue. “Yes, it’s _supposed_ to. This one’s just always been a disappointment," he offers the truth like an olive branch.

“Ah, I see,” says Aziraphale, turning slightly away from Crowley to admire it further. “Maybe it just needed a bit more time. It really is quite lovely.”

" _Beautiful_ " and " _lovely_ " burn into him like Falling for a third time. They settle like embers where his stomach ought to be, smoldering and filling him with smoke, waiting to be fanned into flame.

“It’s a bit like a cactus,” he finds himself saying, “from Madagascar.” Aziraphale looks back at him and Crowley feels himself pinned under his gaze. “Humans call it “the Crown of Thorns” usually.”

He really has said too much now, and he gulps down the rest of his tea to help hide his panic at the way Aziraphale is looking at him. It’s soft and sad and … something else Crowley doesn’t have a name for, isn’t sure he even wants to name.

"It's been a long week, angel," Crowley says to the bottom of his mug. He knows he’s being abrupt, and not at all subtle, which Aziraphale will surely mark. But he really is too tired and worn thin to care if he can’t manage to keep a leash on the things he wants to say but shouldn’t.

He can see that Aziraphale notices, though he doesn’t say anything. He only watches Crowley over the rim of his mug while he sips at his tea. It’s an expression Crowley has seen hundreds of times before and it never fails to scrape across the exposed nerves in his chest. 

"I could sleep for a century," he tries again, but the stricken look on Aziraphale's face has him scrambling to take it back. "Not that I'm going to - don't look at me like that, Aziraphale! But I could do with a good night's sleep, and I bet you could use a bit of rest yourself…" he knows he’s rambling, but he can't seem to stop himself. 

"You're right," Aziraphale admits, "I don't think I've ever felt so tired." He looks it, but Crowley is … not unkind enough to say so.

"I rarely find myself able to sleep," he continues. “But, if I might borrow your sofa,” and here he hesitates, clearly reluctant to impose more than he already has,"and perhaps something to read? That ought to do the trick."

Crowley gestures back toward his sparsely appointed living room, with it's uncomfortable looking sofa, the vaguely threatening matching coffee and end tables, and the bookcase that holds hardly any books at all for all the records filling its shelves. 

"It's nothing like your -," Crowley trips over his careless words, "you're used to." 

He'd meant the bookshop, and Aziraphale must know it. He doesn't mention it and the unnameable, staggering sensation in Crowley’s chest grows. 

"I have a few things, though. Couple of gardening magazines, a few of the less horribly wrong astronomy texts, some crime thriller novels …" Crowley can feel his face heating again. "You're welcome to them. Or, if you had something particular in mind, I could…?" He mimes pulling a book off an invisible shelf, implying a miracle, raising his eyebrows and softening his mouth in offering.

"Oh, don't trouble yourself, my dear. I'm sure I'll be quite content," Aziraphale says, with a smile that makes Crowley think of the warmth of the sun and the wall on his scales, before the very first storm. Of Aziraphale's wings, sheltering him from it. 

Crowley is sure his face can’t grow any redder and yet he feels his face heating, _again_ , and now Aziraphale looks away, reaching for the magazines lying on the coffee table - last month's _Fine Gardening_ and _Astronomy_.

"I've always wanted to know more about the stars, you know," Aziraphale says shyly, and moves to sit - primly, as if he were sitting down for a meal at the Ritz and not for a little restful reading on Crowley’s sofa.

“Aren’t you going to-” Crowley begins, and is stopped by Aziraphale’s curious glance over the top of the magazine cover. He clears his throat, in vain, of course, and tries again. “Don’t you want to get more comfortable?” he asks stiffly, all too aware of how the phrase is sometimes used. If his ears are turning pink, he’ll cut them off himself, he thinks.

Aziraphale makes a pleased sort of humming noise, and answers, “Your sofa is much more comfortable than it looks, my dear, didn’t you know?”

Of course, he knew! Crowley slept on the blessed thing as often as not, especially lately. Sometimes, he really cannot tell if Aziraphale is being dense by nature or by design. 

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, tone catching somewhere between fondly exasperated and extremely frustrated. “Surely you don’t _rest_ in _that_ ,” he gestures at Aziraphale’s many-layered clothes to illustrate. 

Aziraphale keeps looking at him over the top of the magazine. He hasn’t turned a single page since he opened it, but his eyebrows are raised at Crowley as if he’s the one being ridiculous.

Crowley sighs dramatically, running his hands down his sides as if to adjust his jacket. Only now his jacket is a pyjama shirt that whispers under his hands, black and iridescent, with long sleeves. At a glance, you’d miss the subtle snakeskin patterning on it, but Aziraphale is staring, and he can’t seem to stop. There is no pattern on the turned-up cuffs, only dark, shimmering fabric that swallows up the bones of Crowley’s wrists and highlights the shadows between his long fingers.

If Aziraphale dared to look any lower, he’d see the pattern continues down the trousers as well, on fabric that clings and drapes in exactly the most alluring ways. 

“Something more like this, maybe?” Crowley asks, sounding the very picture of innocence. Unless, of course, you know him as Aziraphale does.

Not one to be outdone, Aziraphale sets aside the unread magazine and thinks of one of his favorites, the one he turns to when the bookshop is blessedly empty and he can read in absolute peace. A long nightshirt of pale blue silk, so light and airy it’s all but sheer - perfect for Crowley’s warm apartment. The real thing is probably ashes now, Aziraphale recalls with a small frown, but he remembers it well enough to miracle up a fair imitation.

It feels just the same as Aziraphale remembers when he smooths nonexistent wrinkles beneath his hands. He sighs, pleased with his handiwork, and breathes in a familiar scent - the lavender and rose blend he’d kept it perfumed with since its purchase. He hadn’t thought he’d be able to replicate the fragrance so perfectly. “Will this do?” he asks imperiously, the arch of his eyebrow and curve of his mouth are a taunt and a dare just for Crowley. 

The sharp intake of Crowley’s breath is all the answer he thinks he’s going to get, but a long moment later, Crowley speaks. “You forgot your shoes, you bloody idiot,” he says, sounding equal parts annoyed and fond. 

Aziraphale looks at the floor, quickly. “Oh, I suppose I have,” he says, deflating. It’s very disappointing, meaning to make a certain impression, only to ruin it by forgetting a minor but obvious detail. He starts to lean down to remove the offending footwear, only to be caught by Crowley’s hand on his chin.

"Here, angel," he says, watching Aziraphale’s face but not quite meeting his eyes. This close Aziraphale can tell, even behind the glasses, that Crowley is staring at the rather mundane curve of his cheekbone. The pad of Crowley's thumb presses against the corner of his lips, firm, but delicate as a kiss. “Let me,” he says.

Aziraphale's mouth opens just slightly, feeling Crowley’s thumb follow the movement. He gasps at it, a sharp inhale, and Crowley smiles that barely there smile he knows and loves so well.

Crowley bends, just a little, at the waist, letting his hand fall from Aziraphale's face and settle at the base of his neck.

He makes a soft sound at the loss, and Crowley presses his thumb to the hollow of his throat - as reassurance or apology, Aziraphale isn't sure.

Crowley gets down on one knee, hand falling away completely as he folds his long legs beneath him with rather more grace than Aziraphale would have imagined if he'd ever thought about Crowley kneeling. Which he certainly has not.

He breathes, very carefully, while Crowley gets his other knee under him. This whisper of silk against silk as Crowley kneels, legs pressed together to fit between Aziraphale’s, makes Aziraphale’s breath catch in his chest.

Crowley keeps his head bowed, and sits back on his heels, as if in prayer. But rather than raise his hands in benediction, he presses his cheek to the inside of Aziraphale's knee, and takes a deep breath.

Aziraphale's hands splay on the slick black cushions, and then curl into fists, a few times, wishing all the while that they were plush enough to hold in his fists. Wishing they were handfuls of artfully tousled red hair instead.

Crowley resists the urge to cover Aziraphale’s clutching hands with his own. Instead, he lifts his cheek from Aziraphale’s knee, and wraps his long fingers around an ankle, lifting Aziraphale’s booted foot into his lap. The smooth sole slides over the silk of Crowley’s trousers, halfway up his thigh, until the fabric catches, bunching under the heel.

Under Crowley’s hands, the Balmoral leather is soft to the touch, the laces strong and supple. Aziraphale takes such good care of his things.

He keeps his head bowed, so Aziraphale can’t see his mouth working as he bites back the words he doesn’t know how to say. He knows he should say something, _do something_ , while he still has the chance. 

He finishes unlacing Aziraphale’s boot instead, gently pulls it off, and sets it aside. Aziraphale's foot returns to rest on the top of Crowley's thigh, where his toes curl. The thought of soft skin, barley hidden, tempts Crowley to stop time again; to prolong this moment, with Aziraphale so close, maybe for eternity. Instead, he waits a heartbeat, or a dozen, for Aziraphale to tell him that he's going too fast. The moment passes and the only sounds are Aziraphale's breathing and the creak of his fingers curling against the leather sofa cushion. 

_Just touch him_ , he thinks, and reaches forward, fingers splaying over the back of Aziraphale's ankle. His fingertips follow the delicate knit lines of a rich, dark brown sock upwards and onto bare skin. 

"Really, angel?" he asks, aiming for mocking and landing on terribly fond, “sock garters?” His fingers trace the edges of butter-soft leather, oiled to a perfect golden glow. Aziraphale gasps at the touch, soft and startled, and shivers, from his shoulders down to his toes.

Crowley closes his eyes and bites his lip at the sound, at the drag of fabric across his hips. He hooks his fingers under the buckle, so it doesn't pinch the skin beneath when he unfastens it. 

He should have undone the clasps first, he realizes, once the garter itself has slipped down over the swell of Aziraphale's calf. He fumbles to unsnap them before the whole business droops further, and makes it _really_ difficult.

Once that's done, Crowley twists in place so he can tuck the garter into the appropriate boot. It folds easily in his hand, soft and yielding. He doesn't think of other things that might feel as pliable in his hands. 

Aziraphale hasn't made another sound since the gasp. Crowley doesn't dare risk a glance upward, fearing what he might see on the angel's face even more than he craves it.

Trying to focus on the task at hand, rather than wondering what Aziraphale might look like at this moment, if he only he dared to see, Crowley hooks the fingers of both hands into the sock cuff.

Unable to resist, he runs his thumbs over the subtle marks the garters have left on Aziraphale's skin. That shakes a soft sound loose from deep in Aziraphale's chest, and Crowley yanks the sock down, quite without meaning to 

Before Aziraphale can protest the abuse of his clothing, Crowley traces the bones of his ankle in apology. He’d always thought it was unreasonably silly that the sight of a bare ankle used to be wildly provocative. The way his heart is hammering beneath his ribs, just to have Aziraphale’s skin beneath his fingers, he’s having second thoughts.

Aziraphale makes an appreciative noise when Crowley takes the time to shake out most of the wrinkles out of his sock, and tuck it neatly into his boot, on top of the garter. When Crowley reaches for the other leg, Aziraphale curls his toes into Crowley's thigh. 

The rest of his clothes feel cool against the heat of his skin, but that touch burns him like a brand. Crowley takes one very carefully measured breath, and then another. It's not that he needs to breathe, but it settles him a little. Not enough.

As he works loose the laces of the other boot, Crowley considers the metaphorical writing on the wall. It’s not a _welcome_ distraction, but he’s in desperate need of _anything_ else to focus on that isn't Aziraphale's skin beneath his hands. And it's not like they can just ignore the inevitable fallout of their insubordination.

Both head offices will be looking to punish their wayward emissaries, he knows. He doesn’t even need to imagine the worst - he knows that no matter what penalty awaits him, he’ll surely never see Aziraphale again. The worst they can do is unmake him for his treachery, and that would be kinder than having to go on living permanently separated from Aziraphale. 

Aziraphale would miss him - he thinks, he hopes - but it wouldn't be a terrible blow. Nothing he wouldn't recover from. And yet, his heart still aches at the thought of leaving Aziraphale alone.

He might still be able to convince Aziraphale to flee to Alpha Centauri, if he plays his cards right. If he's lucky. 

The boot comes off in his hands, briefly interrupting his thoughts, and he sets it aside with one hand. The other he runs up the back of Aziraphale's calf, again, lifting it so he can start on the second garter.

Heaven will surely cast Aziraphale out, he thinks. If not for averting Armageddon, then for spending the night here, in Crowley's flat, on Crowley's sofa, with a demon kneeling in rapture at his feet.

Crowley wonders if Aziraphale can be cast Down if they can't find him - if he’s hidden away, far from the world they’ve both come to love. If perhaps he can spare Aziraphale the pool of boiling sulphur that had nearly drowned him - nearly burned him to nothing, for a very long time even after he clawed his way free. Sometimes he thinks he can still taste it, the rotten egg sulfur turning anything he ate to ash.

It’s been eons since an angel Fell - had there been _any_ after the abandonment of the Garden? Crowley can’t recall. Surely there must have been others since, that disobeyed, that questioned… and if they hadn’t Fallen, what had become of them?

The thought chills him, enough that he forgets for a long moment that he's still cradling Aziraphale's calf in his hands. Eventually, he manages to shift his focus back to his task, to the velvet softness of Aziraphale’s garter between his fingers. 

The golden tones of the well-oiled leather really do look striking against the angel's pale, perfect skin. Crowley wants nothing more than to taste it.

But he won't. He'll take this, and drown in it while wanting more.

This time, Crowley remembers to unfasten the clasps first, smiling at the small, pleased sound the angel makes as each one is undone. He rolls the sock off next, more practiced on the second try. He shakes this one out too, folding it and tucking it away like he had the first. 

Once again, he lifts the supple leather away from Aziraphale's skin with care before he unbuckles the garter. Crowley slides it down, and off, one-handed, giving in to temptation and pressing the fingers of his other hand into the faint marks left behind on Aziraphale's otherwise pristine skin.

The angel gives a little gasp - half a laugh, half something Crowley doesn’t dare put a name to - and that's enough to make up Crowley's mind. In his sudden urgency, he drops the garter into Aziraphale's boot with far less care than he'd given the first.

The world didn't end today, though that hardly guarantees that they’ll have more time, more chances. Crowley will be blessed- damned- _something_ if he lets himself waste the only second chance he’d ever received in his entire existence. 

The words for what he wants to say, what he's wanted to say almost since the Beginning, form in his mind and slip away like raindrops before he can say them. Rather than struggle with them, he chooses to rely on something that has rarely failed him when it comes to Aziraphale- his actions.

Crowley braces his hands on the sofa cushions, rising up onto his knees until he’s eye level with the laces of Aziraphale’s nightshirt. He doesn’t look up at the angel’s face, and he doesn’t think of the way the motion has pushed the shirt up above his knees, the way the pale blue fabric must look bunched up against the darkness of his own shirt. It’s almost too much just to feel the featherlight weight of it against his hips. 

His fingers press into the soft skin of Aziraphale’s thighs until they’ve shifted, closer, bracing against Crowley's hips. Aziraphale’s feet slide along the sides of Crowley’s calves, dragging torturously against the silk of his pyjamas. A loose fold catches under the slide of Aziraphale’s foot, pinning the silk to the floor and pulling it tight across Crowley’s skin. It feels like a tether; holding him down, keeping him close. 

“Crowley?” Azirphale says gently, a soothing hand settling over the sharp angles of his knuckles with so much care Crowley can hardly stand it. He looks up into Aziraphale's face and gets caught in the downdraft of his storm cloud eyes. God above and Lucifer below, Crowley loves him - the sweet curve of his mouth, his kind eyes, the lines worn by laughter and care. 

He takes a moment, just to breathe him in, because he knows that this might be the only chance he ever gets. Heaven and Hell are both coming for them; it’s only a matter of time. 

He pulls in air, each lungful of oxygen less important than the smell of Aziraphale carried in it. He gets so lost in cataloguing the floral smell of his nightdress, the dusty vanilla smell from the bookshop, that fizzy scent he can never quite identify, that he forgets that Aziraphale asked him a question.

When Crowley doesn't answer, Aziraphale raises his hand to tenderly stroke his fingers across Crowley's cheekbone, just beneath the rim of his dark frames. He seems frozen, like a skittish animal, and Aziraphale is afraid that if he shows his hand too quickly, Crowley will bolt. 

The black mirror of Crowley's glasses reflect only his own tender, worried gaze back at him. He feels an unusually strong stab of resentment towards them. But the feeling vanishes as quickly as it came, replaced with fierce longing when he traces the edge of a lens with one careful finger, the rest fanning across his cheek. He means it to be a question, and he dearly hopes Crowley knows it.

Aziraphale can feel the weight of Crowley’s gaze as he brushes his thumb over the freckles scattered beneath his glasses. He settles his fingers against Crowley's temple, not quite closing his fingers around the dark lens. He means it to be a forewarning, but the expression on Crowley's face isn't tense or wary. He's looking at Aziraphale, mouth soft and eyebrows arched, like he's waiting for an invitation to be answered.

He takes a moment, just this one moment before Crowley tells him to stop, to appreciate the way that Crowley fits between his thighs, slim hips making the spread of his knees obscene, stripped open and laid bare. His nightshirt is pushed up his thighs, spread taut, and the slide of silk between them feels deliciously filthy. If he never gets this again - this heady, hot breath caught between them - he wants to remember having enjoyed it. He can practically taste his desire for Crowley, pressed close and full of potential. 

An eyebrow peaks above the dark glasses, and Aziraphale’s fingertips trace the shape of it against the curved frame. His thumb strokes across Crowley’s cheek again, up to the lower edge of the glasses hiding his lovely eyes. He can see Crowley watching him through blackout lenses - his eyes are wide, but his expression remains soft, his body still. 

The pads of his fingers rest on the metal rims of Crowley’s hiding place. They grasp, curling around cool metal. Crowley makes no sound, no move at all but the rise and fall of his chest, and the smallest flick of his tongue wetting his lips, quick as a striking snake. Aziraphale takes a steadying breath, and draws the shades from Crowley’s eyes, tilting to unhook them from behind his ears, and slide them down the sharp angle of his nose.

Aziraphale is still holding them by the lens with one hand, Crowley’s hand in the other, when Crowley leans closer, eyes half-hidden by the fall of his lashes, to press a kiss to Aziraphale’s lips. Close-mouthed and chaste, it’s the kind of kiss they’d shared in greeting or farewell in centuries past, but now so much _more_ , shared only for its own sake.

"I'm sorry angel," he breathes, after, "but I had to do that, just once." He doesn't sound particularly sorry, just breathless - much like Aziraphale himself. But he does look like Aziraphale could shatter him into a thousand pieces without trying.

“Oh, dearest,” Aziraphale says softly, as Crowley trembles between his legs and looks away at being called so. He leans forward until his mouth brushes Crowley's ear, "you’ve _nothing_ to apologize for." He sounds steadier than he feels, thank Heaven, when he bends around Crowley to set his glasses on the coffee table. Once they’re safely out of the way, he uses his empty hand to cup Crowley’s jaw and suggests with a careful press of his fingers that he raise his head.

Crowley tips his head up, willing as ever to indulge Aziraphale, and is rewarded with a kiss. Aziraphale lets go of Crowley's jaw, tracing the sharp edge of it with his fingertips until his fingers have sunk into copper-fire hair, and his thumb settles below the hinge of his jaw. Crowley inhales sharply at the touch and without meaning to, Aziraphale flexes his fingers, pressing into Crowley’s skin until his superfluous pulse jumps beneath Aziraphale’s thumb **.** With a small, needful sound, Crowley’s mouth opens beneath Aziraphale’s, sultry and slippery, and Aziraphale dips his tongue inside to taste with a matching noise of his own.

Crowley presses closer, until there’s no air between them at all, just the tease of their clothes catching and dragging and bunching together, just the heave of breath they don’t truly need. When Crowley moves the hand not held down by Aziraphale’s to slide beneath the rucked-up hem of his nightshirt and grip his thigh just above the knee, Aziraphale moans aloud, breaking the kiss.

They breathe together for a moment - Crowley with his temple pressed to the soft line of Aziraphale's jaw, breath hot over his neck and between the laces of his nightshirt, and Aziraphale with his mouth at Crowley’s ear, and his nose in Crowley's hair as he drinks in the scent of it, like a struck flint.

Aziraphale moves to kiss the snake tattoo and Crowley leans into the touch; a wanting, unhappy sound escapes him. "Angel," he starts. Aziraphale drops another kiss there, humming a questioning note. Crowley sighs and steels himself. He can see it already - the hurt, disappointed face Aziraphale will make, imagines what he'll think, but if he doesn't stop them now he thinks he might regret it for the rest of his days. Which might not be very many, come to think of it, but that's no excuse for blighting the best thing that ever happened to him. 

"Angel, stop. Please,” Crowley sighs, and Aziraphale obeys, pulling back quickly. He doesn’t quite flinch away, at least. The smallest of mercies. 

“Is something wrong, my dear?” he asks, the very picture of concern. _Nothing. Everything. You. Me._

Crowley tries to make his mouth anything but a thin, unhappy line, but he can’t tell if he’s successful yet. “If we keep this up,” he says slowly, trying to soften to blow by twining his fingers through Aziraphale's. "I'm going to end up doing something I regret." _Go to bed with you, never want to leave, dirty you until you're nothing but sick sinful want like me, drag you down and make you Fall, burn away all your Grace with all my Love._

"Oh, y-yes, of course," Aziraphale's face crumples, and he sits back on the sofa, the hand on Crowley's neck dropping down to the cushions. He tries very hard not to follow after Aziraphale, to chase his touch. Their fingers remain entwined - Aziraphale hasn't drawn that far away from him, not yet.

Crowley can't quite look at him, now, can't bear to be so close. He stands, removing his hand from Aziraphale's knee and tugging his nightshirt back over it, part of one smooth motion. He doesn't let go of Aziraphale's hand, because he's still holding on, too. 

"We've had a big day, today," he says softly, still looking away, "And who knows what will happen tomorrow." He doesn't reach for his glasses when he sees them on the coffee table, but brushes his thumb over Aziraphale's knuckles instead, stealing undeserved comfort from his soft warmth. 

"First day of the rest of our lives," Aziraphale says. His voice is soft with the promise of it, the golden bright possibility of _them_. It's overshadowed by the slithering fear that it might never come to fruition. Crowley lifts Aziraphale's knuckles to his mouth to cover the stricken look on his face. 

It always did move him to do stupid, undemonic things, when Aziraphale spoke to him like that. He presses a quick kiss to his Aziraphale’s knuckles. "Goodnight, angel," he says, letting go of Aziraphale's hand, and disappears from the room with a snap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> banner by [D20Owlbear (BeforeCrimson)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeforeCrimson/pseuds/D20Owlbear)
> 
> art by [closetcellist](https://closetcellist.tumblr.com/) and [lovelybydecay](https://lovelybydecay.tumblr.com/)
> 
> beta by [cassieoh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassieoh/pseuds/cassieoh) and [Eris (dwarrowkings)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwarrowkings/pseuds/Eris)
> 
> brit-pick by [Lurlur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurlur/pseuds/Lurlur)
> 
> and a little help getting back to work from [samvelg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samvelg/pseuds/samvelg)
> 
> And a big THANK YOU to everyone else who has helped me out as well! I had so many wonderful people supporting me while I worked on this!


	3. Chapter 3

Left alone in Crowley's sitting room, deserted and desolate, Aziraphale thinks about all the ways he must have gotten this all wrong. 

He’d felt so sure, just a moment ago, that Crowley had shared his feelings, his desires - but perhaps he’d been mistaken. While he’s certain that Crowley feels a deep affection for him, the difficulty he continues to encounter, the wall he can’t quite surmount, is this; is it possible for Crowley to love him? Or does he only  _ desire _ him? Lust is, after all, the domain of demons. 

But... he’d trembled at Aziraphale’s touch, and again at being called “dearest”, surely that must mean  _ something _ . 

Crowley's glasses look up at him from the table, but they offer no answers. Neither does the copy of  _ Astronomy  _ he’d set aside earlier. Before-  _ Before- _

Aziraphale snatches the discarded magazine off the coffee table and hides his burning face behind the pages. The first thing to catch his eye is an article on black holes and galaxies. It’s not the headline that catches his attention, but the words beneath it; “ _ Are certain classes of galaxies really different? Astronomers may have just solved a long-standing mystery. _ ” It sounds interesting enough, but he hardly makes it through the fourth short paragraph before his attention wanders.

He thumbs through a few pages and finds a few more headlines that catch his eye but none that hold his attention. 

There’s a black hole in the shadows of the flat, a gravitational sink he’s orbiting, balanced on the edge of the event horizon, desperately working to maintain enough speed to stop himself from crashing, from being drawn in and crushed beyond all recognition or repair. 

Oh, how he wants to fall.

More than halfway through the magazine, he still hasn't found something that doesn't bore him half to discorporation, or leave him with a list of questions. Perhaps he should have started with the "Beginner's Guide to the Cosmos" he can see peeking out from under the small pile of magazines. 

At last he sees something promising; “The Romance of Altair and Vega”. He’s always been partial to a good romance, not that he’d be likely to admit it if anyone bothered to ask. 

Aziraphale doesn’t even get halfway through the heartbreaking myth before he gives up on the magazine entirely and sets it aside. So much for entertaining himself with a little light reading, he thinks, when everything is either too scientific to follow or hits a little too close to the vest just now.

Perhaps, Crowley won’t mind terribly if Aziraphale wanders around a little. 

\--------------------

Crowley sprawls across his bed, dark silk sheets a smooth glide beneath him, a greyscale cotton duvet pulled up to his chest. He bites his lip, trying to forget the softness of Aziraphale's lips against his own, the sweetness of his mouth behind the lingering traces of the tannin-rich assam tea..

Oh, but he'd been so close to everything he wanted, and everything he feared too. And, most wonderful and terrifying of all, Aziraphale had been right there with him. If he had used his snake's tongue to taste the air then, he could have tasted the longing in the air, the electric crackle of the angel's wanting. 

He covers his eyes with his sleeve, and it smells of Aziraphale - the soft floral tang of his enticing blue gossamer nightshirt, the old dust and vanilla of his books. He breathes deep and kicks the duvet lower, the edge settling low on his stomach.

He wants too much, and it fizzes through him like bubbles through champagne. Making the effort has never been so easy.

He thinks of the wishful look on Aziraphale's face when they'd kissed - the ardent curve of his lips, the darkness swallowing up the soft gray of his eyes. 

Crowley tips his chin up to muffle his low groan against his wrist, and reaches down to palm himself through his trousers. The glide of silk over his erection is a small torture, weighed against the torrent of his profane thoughts.

What if he hadn't stopped kissing Aziraphale, stopped being kissed by him? If he'd kept going, and slithered his way into his angel's lap, spread his knees on either side of those glorious thighs. 

His hand dips below the waistband of his trousers as he imagines Aziraphale pulling him closer, fitting their bodies together. He would have reached between them, hand soft and slick already, to wrap around Crowley’s cock with shocking finesse. 

Crowley bucks into his own slick fist and tries to silence himself with a bite to his wrist.

\--------------------

Aziraphale decides to return to the indoor garden. He’s already seen it, so it’s hardly an invasion of Crowley’s privacy. Surely the plants will distract him from how close he’d come to ruin (or rapture) right here on Crowley’s sofa. Mind made up, he stands, picking up Crowley’s glasses as he goes. He tucks them carefully into a pocket, intending to leave them somewhere that won’t force Crowley to face him in the morning without them.

Stepping out of the sitting room and into Crowley’s greenhouse in nothing but his nightshirt reminds him of his time in another garden, left empty and untouched for millennia now. He wonders idly how it's faring on its own as admires each plant in turn. 

He lavishes them all with every compliment he's not allowed to give Crowley himself, until he strokes the intricately-veined leaves of a small, rather plain-looking plant. “Aren't you a lovely thing?" he murmurs to it, and the warm scent of honey and vanilla fills the room, a profusion of tiny, dark purple blooms appearing beneath his hands.

He snatches his hands away as if burned. Can he do nothing without making a mess of it? He imagines Crowley's annoyance, waking up to find Aziraphale's fingerprints all over his spotless flat. The thought pains him more than it should, especially when he'd conjured the memory of Crowley's dramatic, put-upon expressions as a comfort. 

Time for a new distraction. 

He considers nosing around Crowley's flat, searching out anything else that might reveal some new facet of his age-old companion and dearest friend. Perhaps some new insight could be gleaned from his mail or one of the handful of books he kept. 

Aziraphale had meant it when he said he'd been meaning to learn more about Crowley's creations, the pinpricks of dazzling light he'd scattered across a dark and empty sky. He could easily imagine himself with a well-loved book of astronomy in his hands, lounging in a feeble imitation of Crowley's characteristic sprawl across the dark and shining expanse of his sofa.

His imaginings rattle to a stop there, at the sofa; where they'd not only crossed one of the last lines between them, but nearly scrubbed it out of existence

He can't go back to the sitting room, not yet. So he stands in the middle of Crowley's garden, not daring to touch or speak to any of the plants with affection lest he once more incite them to rebel against Crowley’s plans. 

\--------------------

Crowley's moved past thinking about all the debauchery that could have occurred on his sofa. He's quite fond of that sofa, and would very much like to keep using it without getting a hard-on every time he attempts to take a nap in the living room.

Instead, he thinks back to his first sight of Aziraphale, standing on the eastern wall of Eden wreathed in a halo of warm sunlight. That first look and already he had wanted to get closer. And standing under the shelter of his wings, protected from the first rain, he had only wanted, impossibly, to be closer still.

Oh, if he had only known then what he knows now. He would have leaned in close to kiss that insensibly kind angel, and tempted him down from the wall to the soft, sweet-smelling grass below. He'd have fed him sweet, sharp grapes from the vine, and urged the angel to lick every trace of them from his fingers. Perhaps Crowley would also have offered him a taste of the knowledge Eve and Adam had found for themselves - but his angel had already known the difference between good and evil, hadn't he?

"Aziraphale," Crowley groans softly, from his bed in the present day, stroking himself slow and sweet, just enough pressure from his thumb on the head of his cock to be a tease. 

He circles back to imagining Aziraphale lapping at the pad of his middle finger and taking the opportunity to press his finger inside the damp heat of the angel's yielding mouth. Crowley can't resist slipping his middle finger past his own lips. His teeth are too sharp and his lips too thin to be Aziraphale's, but no one has ever accused Crowley of lacking imagination.

He would have opened the angel's robe and shed his own, so they could lie skin to skin as they kissed, the sun warm across his back. Would he have asked Aziraphale to make an effort? It'd be a shame to spook him and bring an end to this blissful tangle of limbs and tongues. If Crowley had asked, would Aziraphale have modeled himself after Adam, or Eve? It wouldn't matter at all to Crowley - he only wants to taste every inch of the angel on his tongue. 

Mind made up, Crowley slides a second finger into his own mouth and imagines he's kissed his way down Aziraphale's body to find his newly-made cock and taken it in his mouth.

What sounds would Aziraphale have made? Would they have been the ones Crowley knows so well? The sharp intake of breath at the first taste of a perfectly tart cranachan, the soft sigh over a wondrously creamy trifle. The bitter and salt of Aziraphale’s sex would be sweeter than any dessert that has ever passed Crowley's lips. 

He tastes blood on his tongue, and pulls his bitten fingers from his mouth. The bleeding he stops with a miracle, but there's nothing at all to be done for his ceaseless wanting.

\--------------------

Maybe a mug of tea would soothe his uncalled-for nerves. After all, Crowley hadn't asked him to leave, nor even asked him not to wander. Aziraphale had seen Crowley go down a hall, and then and return with tea. There must be a kitchen, one equipped with the tools for making tea, or else why bother leaving the room just to pluck two mugs of tea from nothing? They’d tasted perfectly real, with none of the sharp, indescribable sizzle of things made from miracles alone.

He starts down the hall, trying not to stare at the sculpture dominating the end of the hallway. He steals a few glances as he goes, feeling his face flush at the profane display of wings and bare bodies. As he turns into the kitchen, the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding shakes out of him. He leans against the doorway for a moment while he surveys Crowley’s sleek kitchen. Everything in it reflects the light - from the dark and shining countertops to the soft metallic gleam of the appliances.

At the sight of a mug placed on a strange contraption covered with a truly excessive number of knobs and handles, Aziraphale all but resigns himself to a lackluster mug of miracled tea - it's never as good pulled from the aether as it is made the old fashioned way. But a second look reveals a dreadfully modern-looking, but less alarmingly complicated, electric kettle tucked beside it.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Aziraphale takes it to the sink and sets it besides the two tea-stained mugs Crowley must have relocated earlier. While he’s there, he washes and rinses the mugs left in the sink, and sets them on a drying rack drawn from thin air.

Once that’s done, he begins a rather short-lived search for Crowley’s tea collection. He finds it in the first place he looks - the cupboard above where he’d found the kettle hiding in the shadow of that other, more complicated machinery. It’s well stocked with an assortment of teas and coffee beans, and Aziraphale smiles to see some of them are his own suggestions. Feeling a little giddy with this newfound knowledge, he plucks a sachet of Lady Grey from the shelf. 

He returns to the sink, sets his borrowed tea aside, and runs water into the kettle until he’s satisfied it’s enough for at least one mug of tea. At last, he plugs the kettle in, likely for the first time in its life, and sets it to boil.

\--------------------

What if he'd invited Aziraphale back to his kitchen for something more substantial to follow the tea he'd offered? For Aziraphale, a small plate of Glenfiddich shortbread he'd bought for just this purpose. And to go with, two glasses of a deliciously fruity brandy he'd discovered - Berneroy Calvados - and been saving for a special occasion. Crowley can taste it on his tongue now, lying spread across his dark sheets, slowly stroking himself while he considers.

Aziraphale with his cheeks and the tips of his ears still pink from the sight of the statue outside the kitchen, a provocative tangle of exposed skin and straining wings. Crowley can almost see the affronted face Aziraphale would make at the display. He's seen it a hundred times - the huffy pout that always precedes a lecture on decorum.

He knows Aziraphale would wait to taste the brandy, not expecting it to be special. That he’d hum contentedly, munching on his biscuits, finalizing his lecture on the degradation of propriety. Too impatient to hear it, Crowley would lean forward and lick the taste from his mouth. He’d taste of rich, shortbread wholesomeness, a sharp contrast to the tart apple liquor on Crowley's tongue.   


And now, with his hands upon himself and his mouth open and wanting, Crowley's imagination wrenches the wheel away, hurtling him into that perfect, impossible moment with the same sort of reckless abandon Crowley so enjoys driving the Bentley. He's in his bed, alone, and then in a blink, a shiver of thought and effort, he's in the kitchen, and Aziraphale is there and  _ oh- _

_ Aziraphale responds in kind, nipping at Crowley's lower lip and curling his hand in the front of his shirt. He uses it as leverage when he presses himself into Crowley's space, making him step back to keep his balance. He keeps pressing, as tenacious as Crowley knows his angel can be.  _

_ All the while, he's kissing along Crowley's jaw, each point of contact small and sweet and perfect, until his back is pressed against the cold steel of the refrigerator door.  _

_ Aziraphale retraces the path laid by his lips, this time with his teeth, all the way back to Crowley's lips. Then he steals a second kiss, licking into his mouth for another taste.  _

_ He pulls away then, pausing until Crowley’s ready to cry at the loss. "Was that  _ apple brandy _?" his angel asks, tone both fond and accusing. _

_ Crowley isn't able to answer with anything more than a wobbly smirk, self-satisfied but still reeling, until Aziraphale turns a thoughtful frown towards him.  _

_ "Yes or no, Crowley," Aziraphale says firmly, moving his hands to the buttons of Crowley's shirt. He won’t begin unbuttoning it just yet, but he dips his thumbs below the edges of the dark fabric and sweeps them up his breastbone - a promise. _

_ "Yes,” Crowley gasps, then, "angel, please," as Aziraphale frees the first button and sinks his teeth into the skin where neck meets shoulder. He makes quick work of the rest of the buttons, leaving searing kisses as he goes. Aziraphale settles his hands on his hips, fingers dipping below Crowley's waistband. He hisses softly, the cool metal of Aziraphale's golden ring like an icy brand on his overheated skin.  _

_ “What is it, Crowley?” Aziraphale says, low and full of promise, his hands tightening over the bones of Crowley’s hips. “What can I do for you?”  _

As long as Crowley's wanted him, it's a shame that even in his mind, Aziraphale only ever asks Crowley what he wants. Like he doesn't know. Like he can't guess. Like Crowley hasn't told him with a thousand smiles, a hundred glances, and once, a very deliberate brush of his fingers. There’s only one possible answer.

_ “Anything you want, angel,” he replies. No, that’s a lie - he begs, hands clinging to the worn velvet of Aziraphale’s waistcoat until every joint aches. “Please.” _

_ “What I want is to have you on your back for me,” the angel says with a wicked smile, abandoning his bruising grip on Crowley’s hips to drag gentle fingers across his stomach, then ribs. His hands sweep over Crowley's chest, carving the air right out of his heaving lungs, and up under the open collar of his shirt. _

Would Aziraphale press his thumbs to either side of his throat, and feel the slightly out of sync thumping of his heartbeat there, he wonders. Crowley moans softly at the thought. He’d want Aziraphale to do it and feel the way he makes this demon’s rotten heart race. He wants to feel dizzy with it. All this time he’s been going slow, but he strokes himself slower still, and reaches up to stroke the rushing veins of his neck with the hand not working over his swollen, aching prick. 

He presses a thumb beneath his jaw, feeling his heartbeat pound against it, and then his forefinger copies that touch on the other side. He presses down, not gentle, but careful, until his head’s swimming like he’d had far more to drink than the bottle they’d shared on that bus stop bench back in Tadfield.

\--------------------

While he waits, Aziraphale absently reaches into the pockets of his nightshirt to keep his hands out of trouble. In one, his fingers brush a very old, very important scrap of paper. 

Aziraphale pulls it from his pocket, rubbing the thick parchment paper between his fingers, already suspecting what he'll see. He's not wrong, though the last he'd seen it Crowley had been holding it carefully in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other. It must be important, to have miraculously ended up in his hands twice.

_ "When alle is fayed and all is done, ye must choofe your faces wisely, for soon enouff ye will be playing with fyre,"  _ he reads aloud, so quiet he can hardly hear himself in the silence of Crowley's kitchen 

The end of the prophecy is simple enough, he thinks. He’s been doing it for years, hundreds of them in fact, cultivating a friendship with Crowley. _ Playing with fire.  _

It could also mean the punishment awaiting him for helping thwart Armageddon. Regardless of whether or not he truly believes this was all part of Her Plan, he'd be foolish to think there wasn't a cost to be paid for what he's done. He expects to be to burn in hellfire for his penance, if he can even call it that. Or, at the very least, to be cast down from heaven into the fires of hell. It might not be so bad, really, though it's likely to break Crowley's heart. Aziraphale hasn't felt at home in heaven since, well, he can't recall. 

_ And what of Crowley? _ he thinks, feeling the sharp sting of desolation creeping in. Crowley had told him as they walked to the bus stop, shoulder-to-shoulder in a way they would never have dared before, that he'd had to use the holy water Aziraphale had so reluctantly gifted him. Without it, how will Crowley protect himself when the time comes?

It'll be holy water for him, Aziraphale is certain. The hosts of Hell never were especially creative, and they always had been rather fond of the old "an eye for an eye" business.

The kettle whistles, sharp and sudden enough to startle him, though it's certainly not that kind of kettle that's  _ meant  _ to whistle. Aziraphale quickly stuffs the scrap of paper back into his pocket, and drops the tea bag into an empty mug. He pours the boiling water with shaking hands, and tries very hard to think of anything but the sound of it pouring, bubbling. 

He wonders if the mug in his hands is his or Crowley's, but he can’t tell. He sets the kettle down too hard beside the sink and grips the cold stone until his knuckles turn white 

The tea steeps, filling the kitchen with the faint, pleasant scent of citrus. It does nothing to soothe Aziraphale's frayed nerves, so he spends the time required for steeping loosening his grip on the countertop and mulling the prophecy over one more time.

They'd already chosen their sides, though perhaps not what some would call wisely. But what else could they have done and lived with themselves, after? Even Aziraphale is sick to discorporation of making excuses, and it only took him a couple of millennia to catch up to Crowley there. What else was there to choose, really? They'd each already made the choice that would damn them.

\--------------------

"We're on our own side," he'd told the angel, not for the first time, but softer and more vulnerable than ever before. And, miracle of miracles, Aziraphale hadn't argued - which  _ was _ a first.

He’d wanted to say it, then, those words that have burned on the tip of his tongue time and time again throughout the centuries. Even his endlessly inventive mind can’t imagine what Aziraphale might have said to him in return if he had.

"Dearest," he thinks of Aziraphale saying instead, and finds himself trembling again even at the memory, the figment, of it. 

_ He sits on his desk before Aziraphale, at his instruction, made too shy by his nakedness to even steal a glance at the angel. Is this how Eve felt, he wonders, after she'd tasted that damned, damning apple? He still doesn't feel quite sorry for it. _

_ The stone desktop is cold beneath his bare arse, against the backs of his knees where he lets his legs dangle over the edge. _

_ "Dearest," Aziraphale says, soft and inviting, drawing a shiver from Crowley, "will you touch yourself for me?" _

_ He takes himself in hand, already hard - just from the heat of Aziraphale's eyes on him, just from his quiet command to undress himself,“With your bare hands, mind, none of your demonic miracles.” His only answer is a groan, long and low and like something ancient cracking open. _

_ "Very good, dear boy," Aziraphale praises him, enough to make him grip his cock tighter to keep this from ending much too soon. "Go on now," he insists, and Crowley doesn’t even need to look at know he's smiling his approval. "Stroke yourself for me. Show me what you like." _

_ Crowley's mouth falls open on a high whine, more from Aziraphale's words of encouragement than the slide of his hand over his cock. _

_ "Anything," he gasps, leaning back on one elbow and arching his back to give his angel a proper show, "I'd like anything you wanted to give me."  _

_ “Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, a hard edge beneath his softness, “I want to give you everything.” He strokes his hands up the insides of Crowley’s thighs, sweeping his palms up and away from where Crowley wants them, to rest on his hips.  _

_ Crowley would have wrapped his legs around Aziraphale and pulled him in close, then, until their hips were pressed together - but Aziraphale hasn’t asked him to, hasn’t told him he can. He makes a low noise, half frustration and half pleading, “Guess you’d better get started then, angel.” _

_ This time, Aziraphale says his name like a warning, pinching a nipple hard enough to make Crowley hiss in pain for his cheek. _

_ "Look at me, darling," he commands, and Crowley obeys, spineless thing that he is.  _

_ The sight of Aziraphale, bare-chested and steely-eyed, very nearly makes Crowley come. But at his startled groan, Aziraphale tells him "Not yet, dearest. You're doing so well, but I'm not done with you."  _

_ It’s too much for Crowley, to keep looking at Aziraphale while he promises such filth, so he closes his eyes again and turns his face up to the ceiling and hopes Aziraphale doesn’t ask again.  _

_ Instead, soft fingers soothe down the tight-strung muscles of his tense, sprawling thighs, and a gentling voice says “Turn over for me, would you please, my dear?” _

_ Crowley scrambles to grant this request with a breathless groan, pressing his cheek and chest to the cool stone of his desk with abandon. He lets himself slide across it, savoring the drag across his nipples as he gropes for the far edge to hang onto. _

_ “That's right, just like that,” Aziraphale praises him, settling a firm hand on Crowley’s hip to stop his slow slide across the slick surface. “No grinding against it, darling,” he warns, entirely too brightly. “In fact, best not let your cock touch it at all. I know you won’t be able to help yourself if you do.” _

_ Crowley shivers beneath the hard edge of that voice; the hands stroking down his back, the lips trailing open-mouthed kisses down his spine. He groans and bucks his hips uselessly while Aziraphale follows the path of his tailbone down to the crease of him and grips his arse cheeks, hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises. _

_ “If you want to come, you'll have to do it with nothing more than my tongue, or my fingers, inside you.” _

Crowley rolls onto his knees with a choked sob, chest pressed into the mattress and arse in the air. He hardly has to think about it to wet his fingers. Usually, he'd start with two, always going too fast, but Aziraphale would have opened him up slow. First with his tongue, the wet and wicked thing. 

Crowley slips one slicked finger inside himself.

\--------------------

Aziraphale steps sideways through the cracked-open stone doorway that separates Crowley’s moonlit nursery from the dark room beyond, careful not to touch it. Safely on the other side, he turns back to give it a considering look, sipping at his tea. It looks a little like a revolving door, but he's not sure enough of that to test it.

He turns away from the imposing door, cataloging the shadowy room in a slow glance. A statuette of a falcon, carved with lovely detail, a slab of carnelian red marble on a desk facing the soft glow of the London skyline, an ornate golden chair with plush red velvet cushions.

Aziraphale's eyes linger for a moment, picturing Crowley lounging there. He could hardly manage his usual sprawl in the confines of this chair, but perhaps he might sit there with a leg draped over an arm, the other spread as far as his narrow hips and the shape of the chair would allow. Would the carving leave imprints on his thighs?

A shiver starts in his spine, and he shakes himself loose from those thoughts before they can travel any further.

Aziraphale miracles a coaster, and sets his mug down on the gleaming marble of the desk with a muffled thump of finality. He sits upon Crowley's pretentiously throne-like chair with the same decisiveness. He can hardly imagine Crowley sprawled shamelessly across the thing if he can't see it, he thinks, and takes a determined sip of his tea.

It's not nearly as calming as he'd hoped. Not when his mind begins to wander again almost immediately to thoughts of Crowley kneeling at his feet, his long fingers splaying over the golden lion's heads that form the arms of the chair, gripping the plush red velvet cushion rather than Aziraphale's thighs. Unconsciously, he leans back into the ornate chair’s embrace, his feet sliding across the floor as his legs fall open, indecent and wanting in the shadowed room.

The inside of his knee burns at the memory of Crowley's cheek pressed there and Aziraphale nearly groans aloud at the image in his mind. He thumps his head against the back of the chair, as if that will clear it, but all it does is make him think of all the ways Crowley might have driven him to do so if he really was there, on his knees between Aziraphale's spread thighs. 

He grips the lion's head with one hand, hard enough to leave grooves on his fingers and palm, and lifts his mug to gulp his tea with the other. Better that than biting his tongue, which had been his first thought.

Aziraphale sets the mug down again, his hand shaking enough that it clatters against the marble before he rights his aim and gets it onto the coaster. He hopes, wills, that it hasn't left a mark, and tilts his head to check that it hasn't. 

The ornate box from before catches his eye again - black wood marked by carven designs inlaid with gold. It doesn't seem likely that Crowley would keep letters, of all things, though that is ostensibly its purpose.

Aziraphale opens it, just to see. The mystery is a pleasant distraction from his other thoughts, and he hopes the knowing will be the same.

The first letter neatly filed away in Crowley's little box is signed and dated in his own neat hand.  _ August, 1880 _ . He hadn't forgotten what he'd written in that letter, or any of the ones he’d written while Crowley slept most of a century away. He snaps the lid of the box, and that train of thought, shut.

\--------------------

Crowley removes his finger slowly, stroking the pucker of muscle like a greedy tongue might, vanishing the lube he'd already coated himself with. Sure, he can  _ imagine _ the raw feeling of being worked open by dry fingers, with only a little angelspit to ease the way. But why not indulge in as much of the real thing as he can?

He presses his chest further into the mattress, deepening the arch of his back as he works one finger back inside, panting as he imagines it's Aziraphale's thick finger burning its way into him.

_ Aziraphale holds Crowley down against his own desk with one hand, slowly working one spit-slick finger into him, just as Crowley had asked.  _

_ “That's good, angel. Don't need more. Just you, please." Not entirely truthful of him, but he can't just tell Aziraphale that he wants it to burn. _

_ "So good for me," he says over Crowley's gasping moans, slowly twisting his finger in, and then dragging it out again. _

_ There's too much friction for Crowley to try and fuck himself on Aziraphale's finger, but he's not capable of keeping still either - his hips rock in small, hitching movements. _

_ Aziraphale nuzzles down the swell of his arse, the tensed muscle at the back of his thigh. And Crowley jerks sharply when his angel's wicked tongue laps at the tender skin of his aching balls, driving Aziraphale's finger deep into his body. _

_ "Oh, angel," he says, softly, on a breath shaking roughly out of his chest. Aziraphale just licks him again, wet and searing, and this time he jerks forward until only the tip of Aziraphale's finger remains inside.  _

_ He feels the whorls of a fingerprint teasing at his rim. "More," he begs, his spine tight with the effort of keeping his hips perfectly still. The cold edge of the desk presses hard against his ribs with every heave of his breath. _

_ “If you like, dearest," Aziraphale says indulgently, breath warm over where he's starting to stretch Crowley open mercilessly while he squirms beneath the weight of Aziraphale’s forearm across his back, holding him down. _

_ Once Aziraphale works both his fingers into Crowley and starts thrusting them so languidly as to drive even a saint mad, Crowley starts rolling his hips, flexing his back as much as possible with Aziraphale pinning him to the desk. _

_ He’s desperate for Aziraphale to brush against that delightful bundle of nerves, to find it and crook his fingers hard into it, again and again, until Crowley sees stars. _

_ And Aziraphale, oh, Aziraphale tries  _ not _ to find that spot, taking his sweet time with Crowley and driving him mad. _

Crowley's had quite enough of dragging it out, and he holds one too-thin finger against his prostate while he works a second finger in alongside the first, muffling his sharp moan with a mouthful of featherdown pillow.

_ Aziraphale kisses his way up Crowley's spine, fingers still working him open. He presses himself flush against Crowley's back, nipping up his neck to his ear. "Do you think you're ready, darling?" he asks, breath hot against Crowley's ear.  _

_ "No," Crowley groans, still trying to twist his hips just so and get some pressure on his prostate. "One more," he gasps, "please, angel." _

_ Aziraphale's fingers drag against tender flesh on their way out, and Crowley shudders in anticipation as they slip free. He whimpers, too, when Aziraphale moves from where he was stretched over Crowley's back, leaving him feeling weightless and adrift. _

_ A hand settles on the curve of his arse, fingers still damp with spit idly stroking his skin, pressing into it. "Scoot up a bit," he tells Crowley, and obediently he shuffles forward, whining sharply when his sensitive cockhead bumps against finely carved wood.  _

_ "No, darling," Aziraphale admonishes gently, and clarifies his direction, "hips all the way against the desk. And get your prick up on the top."  _

_ He does as he's told, unable to resist grinding against the desk and arching his hips up to press his stomach down against it. He can hear the wet sound of Aziraphale's fingers in his own mouth, and he imagines the sight, pink lips stretched wide around all three of his thick, blunt fingers, readying them to split Crowley open further. _

_ Crowley swallows down the crest of pleasure that threatens to overwhelm him - his filthy imagination and finally having a little friction on his cock is almost too much. But he wants Aziraphale inside him when he shakes apart, even if it's only his fingers. _

_ He jerks and sobs his surprise when Aziraphale's tongue laves over his hole, so slick and wet that saliva runs down his balls before his fingers are there, all three pressing into Crowley together. _

_ "Oh  _ fuck  _ yes, angel," Crowley moans, feeling on fire from head to toe, all radiating from the center of him, where Aziraphale's fingers delve mercilessly.  _

_ "Keep your seed on the desk when you come, Crowley," Aziraphale says, twisting his fingers in that last inch, and pressing them hard into Crowley's prostate, "I don't want to be cleaning it out of the woodwork later." _

Crowley gasps as his hips jerk involuntarily, his neglected cock bouncing against his stomach and making him keen. Even with his face buried deep in a pillow, the sound seems to echo in the empty room.

\--------------------

A quiet sound interrupts Aziraphale’s buzzing thoughts, and he looks quickly to his right, where the sound seemed to come from. 

He hadn’t seen it before, but a short hall extends from the room - much like the one at the other end of the flat. But where the one that led to the kitchen had been awash with light, displaying a tangle of wings and limbs he hadn’t dared to look at too closely, this one was dimly lit but for a faint glimmer of light cast on a bird’s wings. 

Aziraphale feels stretched too thin, looking at it, like something in him might snap if he doesn't look away and try to forget having seen it.

He can't stop looking at it.

Something about the shape of the wings, the glow of them against the dark, stirs a familiar sensation - a deep inhale of relief and gratitude, his chest cracked open and overflowing.

_ Oh, yes, the church.  _ Aziraphale remembers now - the lectern left standing by some miracle in the ruin of the bombed church, the flames licking at its wings casting a little warmth and light over him as his hand closed over Crowley's, just for a moment.

_ “Little demonic miracle of my own _ .  _ Lift home?” _

Crowley had delivered him safely home, where Aziraphale had invited him in for a drink and held the door for him as he limped across the threshold. After each glass of wine, Aziraphale tried to summon the courage to ask Crowley if he was alright. 

He never did. They shared the wine, a few drunken giggles, a few sidelong glances, but no more than that. They said their goodbyes, Crowley sobered up, and then he left.

Had he gone back for it, then? He must have. While Aziraphale had sat in his bookshop all night, feeling too stretched at the seams, wondering how long Crowley had loved him, and how he could have missed it. Wondering how long he'd loved Crowley and what he was going to do about it.

Aziraphale looked around the room again. The letterbox of his letters, the falcon statuette, the Mona Lisa sketch… and the lectern from the church. All souvenirs, keepsakes. 

In a demon's home. 

Crowley must have felt it too, that moment in the bombed-out church when he couldn't keep pretending not to know. That was why he'd gone back for the lectern and chosen to display it here, in this room of relics.

The realization creeps through him, a slow unwinding of the tension that had lived so long in his chest he'd forgotten it wasn't just a part of this human body.

There's little left to fear now, at least from Heaven or Hell. If he confesses his desire for a demon now, it would hardly be the greatest of his sins. And if Crowley admits his love for an angel, it would likely be the least of his as well. What, then, had pulled Crowley up short? Does he still not know that Aziraphale loves him, with all too-human heart and soul?

Another muffled sound interrupts his thoughts, and this time he rises from Crowley's ornately carved chair to follow it to its source.

After all, if Crowley is still awake, there's no reason not to seek him out. Aziraphale pats absently at his pocket to check that Crowley's glasses are still there, safe and sound. He can return them, and, if he is brave enough, perhaps he can also return the affection Crowley has lavished on him over the centuries.

As he passes the lectern, he allows himself a small, hesitant smile. He has an awful lot of catching up to do, he knows, but Crowley's patience with him has always been that of a saint.

Aziraphale turns to the right, following those quiet sounds, and rests his hand on the door of what he assumes is Crowley's bedroom. 

_ There won't be any turning back now _ , he tells himself, and wraps his hand around the doorknob.

\--------------------

Crowley withdraws his two fingers until just his fingertips are left inside, holding him open - enough, he hopes, to slide a third in without too much effort. He spreads his fingers, and on the second try manages to slip the tip of his third finger inside. Too impatient, he thrusts in with a vicious twist of his fingers, rocking his hips back onto them even as he lets out a low, pained groan. He curls his fingers and then - 

_ He snaps his hips forward without meaning to, hard into the unforgiving marble edge, and makes a sharp, torn open sound. Oh, the bruises he'll have there tomorrow. _

_ Aziraphale's hand presses into the curve of his lower back, holding him down against the desk gently as he rocks his fingers in and out in small movements. _

_ It burns, still, the stretch and friction of it, and Crowley hisses his way through it between sharp, short moans every time Aziraphale's fingers move just where he wants them, sending sparks up his spine. _

_ It's not long before Crowley's trembling, between the way Aziraphale's fingers are working over that sweet spot, stretching him wide, and the way his cock slides over the desk and against his stomach with the little hitches of his hips he's able to manage. _

_ "Aziraphale," he pants, and his angel leans over him again, a weight at his back, holding him down, holding him steady.  _

_ "Yes, my love?" he asks, lips soft against the marking on his cheekbone, letting his weight settle more firmly over Crowley while he keeps working his fingers, picking Crowley apart at the seams. The buttons of his shirt dig into Crowley's back. _

_ "Please," Crowley whines, cheek pressed to the rust-red marble, too gone to even feel ashamed of himself. Aziraphale grasps his jaw, twisting his head with such gentleness Crowley's heart  _ aches, _ and kisses him. It's open-mouthed and filthy, with Crowley trying to swallow Aziraphale's tongue.  _

_ He is so full of wanting.  _

_ Aziraphale presses his fingers hard into Crowley's prostate, at last, and grinds his now naked cock once against a firm arse cheek, so that Crowley knows perfectly well just how affected he's been by all this, despite his outward calm. _

_ Crowley comes, crying out Aziraphale's name, bucking so hard against the heavy desk that it shifts across the stone floor. _

Oh, he's so close, three sharp needlepoint fingers deep in his arse instead of the thick ones he'd been imagining. He doesn't touch his weeping, aching cock, not yet. He's not quite ready to be done with this fantasy.

_ Aziraphale pulls his fingers out, and runs his hand soothingly up his flank while the hand holding his jaw shifts to sink into his hair. Crowley hums pleasantly, briefly allowing himself to enjoy being petted so. Then he rocks back into Aziraphale's cock, still trapped against the curve of his arse. _

_ Aziraphale pulls on his hair, gently at first, and then with more intent, until Crowley is arching up off the desk, his back bent perhaps more than ought to be humanly possible with his hips still pinned down to the desk. _

_ Aziraphale reaches between them, palming briefly at his oversensitive prick just to make him squirm, and then running up the curve of his stomach and over the planes of his chest, smearing Crowley's ejaculate even further, letting it gather on his hand. _

_ His hand disappears for a moment, and Crowley trembles as he listens to the sound of Aziraphale slowly stroking his own cock. _

_ Aziraphale reaches around again, this time to swipe his fingers through the puddle Crowley left on the desk, making sure to lift his hand so Crowley can see his seed dripping down Aziraphale's fingers. _

_ "Do you think this will be enough to make you wet for me?" he asks, and Crowley makes a desperate sound in answer. He's unable to speak to say yes, and Aziraphale's grip on his hair keeps him from nodding frantically when he tries.  _

Crowley can't help himself, can't wait another second to spit into his palm and wrap his hand around his aching dick. He fucks himself on his fingers and fucks into his fist and wishes desperately that even one of Aziraphale's fingertips were anywhere on his skin.

_ Aziraphale lowers him gently back onto the desk, back into the cold damp of his come smeared across the marble desktop - clean white and rust red and lovely. _

_ Crowley nods then, rocking back and rolling his hips in case that's not answer enough. His tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth or he'd be begging right now. _

_ "You gorgeous creature," Aziraphale says, leaning forward to bite a kiss into the nape of Crowley's neck at the same time he smears Crowley's own seed over his already well-fucked hole.  _

_ He doesn't bother using his fingers again, the loosened muscle opens easily under the first press of Aziraphale's cock. Crowley's come slicks the bulging head as Aziraphale dips it inside - once, twice - and smears down the length as he slides home.  _

Crowley yanks his fingers out with one last vicious jab at his prostate, and he tries to hold himself up when he comes, shaking apart and gasping Aziraphale's name while he covers his sheets with streaks of white. 


End file.
